Pope Benedict XVI: Interviews & Controversies

The Ratzinger Report is a book-long interview with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that his friend and former student, Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., says could be called the "Magna Carta" of the papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. *** Here is the comlete text of a meeting many have called a "historical turnabout" in the Church. The roots of the crisis that hase troubled Catholics in the twenty years since the Council are analyzed with forthright clarity by one of the most authoritative voices in the Vatican. Here is a clear and uncompromising report on the dangers that threaten the Faith, fom one who every day receives the most reliable information from every continent. Yet Ratzinger's observations are as hopeful and balanced as they are clear-sighted, forcefully re-affirming the immense and positive work of Vatican II, whose genuine fruits this book provides a guideline for achieving.

Presents snippets of question and answer sessions held between Pope Benedict XVI and various groups, including Italian priests and youth, that cover such topics as divorce and remarriage, consumerism, sacraments, Scripture, and Mass.

Ratzinger begins by discussing his own life, including his family life, seminary studies, being a theology professor and writer, becoming a Bishop, Cardinal, and the Pope's top authority on doctrine as head of the CDF. He then discusses the problems of the Catholic Church today, answering tough questions about the Church's position on divorce, celibacy, contraception, abortion, women's ordination, ecumenism, etc., and talks about the challenges and hopes of the future of the Church and the world at the beginning of the Third Millennium.

In the person of Benedict XVI,the Church has a Pope who is ine of the most significant of Europe's intellectuals.The journalist Peter Seewald,who has known Ratzinger since 1992,conducted the "longest interviews in Church history" with him, for two books that were world-wide best -sellers,"Salt of the Earth,and "God and the World". Now, for the first time, Seewald describes these intensive encounters in detail,and draws an engaging portrait of this brilliant theologian and pastor who has put his life entirely at the service of God and his Church.This book is also the story of a long dialogue that changed Seewald's own life. Many people are trying to understand who Benedict XVI really is.On one point they all agree:in the person of Joseph Ratzinger,the chair of Peter is occupied by one of the most brilliant minds in the world.Peter Seewald's portrait of Benedict recounts details about the personality and life of Benedict that were hitherto generally unknown.

In a lengthy interview held over three days at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, the future pope answers questions on faith, God, Christ, the Church, and related topics.

Since 1985, the Catholic Church in the United States has been living in the shadow of the clerical sexual abuse crisis. There is no escaping the fact that Pope Benedict, as the former head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and now as pope, has played an historically pivotal and personal role in the Vatican's response to the crisis.

Overshadowed by the violent reaction and rioting troughout the world,the September 12,2006,lecture by Pope Benedict XVI at Regensburg,Germany,at the university where he once taught,is a multifaceted and brilliant speech that addresses the very nature of man's understanding of a free conscience,his thirst for knowledge in both reason and revelation,his understanding of the limitations of the will,and the nature of his ability to understand his neighbor.It explains the Church's historical claims that Christ himself is Logos (as the opening of John's Gospel proclaims),a term meaning "word","logic",and "speech".One's faith is to be grounded in a self-limiting God,Who does not capriciously change the rules on humans but Who reveals himself to our reason as well as our hearts.A God Who respects His own creation enough to give man free will,and thus a free conscience and an ability to fail; Who leads man,through both reason and revelation,to Himself,always in peace and never in violence;Who is a God of Life,Not Death.